Case Study: Creating Unlimited Color and Texture Variations

Electronic Arts: Unlimited Texture Variations.

(Sorry for the low quality video.)

Problem:

1000’s of articles of clothing, accessories, and equipment were needed to fill a virtual Pro shop for a the Tiger Woods PGA tour 2004 video game. Specific brands wanted their clothing represented as closely as possible in the game, sending us catalogs of options. But with limited time, and texture memory, how we were going to get them all in.

Strategy and Solution:

We combined the power of Excel with the flexibility of Photoshop to manipulate RGB image channels independently. Using the 3 channels as color placement control masks, scripted tools were setup so the artists could quicky visualize different patterns and color combinations that could be exported as as a single texture. Spreadsheets were used to control which colors got placed into which textures according to Brand, Item and style.

Results:

Over 7000 textured assets were created for the Proshop area of the Create a player game within a few months time. This technology set new standards for Create-A-player features in the video game industry, and lead EA sports teams worldwide to adapting similar scripted toolset solutions.